New well in Montuiri to combat water crisis

MontuïriThe Montuïri City Council has begun work to connect a new water supply well to the municipal network, an urgent measure whose main objective is to minimize the severe water crisis that the municipality is suffering.

With this action, the City Council and the Pla Commonwealth hope to face the next summer season with greater supply guarantees and, above all, reduce the constant trickle of tanker trucks that until now were essential to supply the population not only in the months with the highest temperatures but almost all year round.

The project has a budget of €202,000, an investment financed entirely through the Water Pact funds. This economic injection will allow the water from this new well in Son Manera to reach directly to the distributor tank of the general network.

The mayor of Montuïri, Toni Miralles, explained that "we are already carrying out the surveys in Joan Alcover street to know where we have to pass the pipe to the tank". Likewise, he points out that the passage through the three plots of rustic land on the Son Manera road, where the connection pipe must run, will also begin once an agreement has been reached with the owners.

Thus, the connection will go from the new well to the Pou del Rei, where there will be a booster pump from which the water will pass through the aforementioned Joan Alcover to the distributor tank.

This project has been delayed due to the lack of authorization from the Roads department of the Consell de Mallorca to cross the Lloret road from the Son Manera agrotourism to the road of the same name. Now, however, it seems that this procedure will be possible, although technically Abaqua will have to bring a tunneling machine expressly from the peninsula. "Now we are doing everything that depends on the City Council within the urban area because that way, when we receive the authorization from the Consell de Mallorca to pass the pipeline under the road, we will have everything advanced," Miralles pointed out.

Until now, the Pla Commonwealth had been forced to contract external road water transport services to fill the tanks, especially in Montuïri, but also in other towns such as Algaida or Porreres, to avoid supply cuts.

In fact, for many years the supramunicipal body has paid more than €500,000 annually just for tanker trucks, which have been financed with the fee paid by citizens on their water bills. This fee, however, was applied to make investments for better network maintenance that could not be carried out, as it has been allocated to the purchase of water.

It should be recalled that after years of claiming it, the Pla Commonwealth received a subsidy of €528,285 from the Balearic Government to cover the expenses derived from the transport of water by tanker trucks during the year 2025.

Now, with the commissioning of the new well, it is expected that the dependence on these tanker trucks will decrease significantly, allowing for direct savings in the coffers of the supramunicipal institution and a more autonomous management of the resource by the municipality.

Repair

Despite the imminent connection of the new well, the Pla Commonwealth asks for prudence and a long-term vision. The president, Joana Maria Pascual, has wanted to recall that, despite the importance of this work for Montuïri, "we are not facing the definitive resolution of the water problem in Montuïri or in the Pla de Mallorca".

According to the president, the only way to guarantee the water security of the entire interior of the island is a global infrastructure: the definitive connection with Abaqua's high-level network. This solution would allow water from the desalination plants to reach the inland towns directly. In this way, "the exclusive dependence on increasingly strained aquifers would end". "Until this connection of the Pla with the high-level network becomes a reality, what we are doing is patching the problem," points out Pascual.

It should be remembered that of the 14 towns in the region, Algaida, Ariany, Costitx, Lloret, Llubí, Maria, Montuïri, Porreres, Santa Eugènia, Sineu, and Vilafranca have a communal water supply. For their part, Petra, Sant Joan, and Sencelles manage it directly.